John W. James

Where were you when I needed you?

The saddest question we ever hear is, "Where were you when I needed you?"

That's what people ask when they find out what we do in helping grievers. We're presenting helpful and accurate information on this site, at the time you need it most, with the hope that you'll never need to ask that question.

It's an honor and a sad privilege to be addressing you, knowing that each of you has recently experienced the death of someone important to you. We also know some of you are reading this because of your care and concern for someone who is confronted by the death of someone important in their life.

We bring our personal experience in dealing with the deaths of people who were important to us, and our professional know-how in helping grievers for more than 30 years. We'll help you distinguish between the "raw grief" that is your normal and natural reaction to the death, and the equally normal "unresolved grief" that relates to the unfinished emotions that are part of the physical ending of all relationships.

A basic reality for most grieving people is difficulty concentrating or focusing. With that in mind, we asked Tributes.com to print our articles in a large type font to make them easier to read. Sharing our concern for grieving people, they agreed.

Ask The Grief Experts

Families Don't Always Stick Together (Published 8/7/2012)

I would just like to know why some family members disassociate themselves from another family member after a death?

A Grief Expert Replies:

Dear Jeanine,

Wow—we don’t know if we can answer that one-line question in a whole book.

We’ve heard some of the most horrible stories about the way families behave towards each other after a death.

Here’s a list of probabilities:

Some of what happens is an extension of long-term issues between members of the family that may have been hidden. ·

Some of what happens relates to money and property and other issues relative to the estate and people’s fear of financial insecurity. ·

Some of what happens relates to the mass of misinformation many people have about dealing with their own grief and in reacting to the grief or others. ·

And very often, a family is loosely held together by their co-relationships to the head of the family - mom, dad, grandma, etc. When that individual dies, the glue that kept the family together loses its hold, and like a house of cards, everything comes tumbling down.

We’d guess that your situation reflects some or all of the above.

While we may have given you some general guidelines in response to your question, there’s another question that relates to the secondary loss that follows the death: “How do you deal with the emotions you feel when you are affected by the disassociation you mention, or the splitting up of the family?”

As with all losses, we direct you to The Grief Recovery Handbook [available in most libraries and bookstores]. As you read it, you will learn what actions will help you become emotionally complete with the death of the person who was important to you; and how to deal with the change or end of relationships with others within the family.